North Korea had two shipments destined for the Syrian government agency responsible for chemical weapons intercepted in the past six months, according to a United Nations security council report.
The report sparks fears that Kim Jong-un could look to sell his nuclear arsenal as Pyongyang is squeezed financially through a series of international sanctions supported by Donald Trump.
The contents of the shipment weren’t revealed in the report, but the possibility of arms cooperations between Syria and North Korea is being investigated.
The report said: “The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and North Korea.
“Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of KOMID contract with Syria.”
Speaking to CNN, Jonathan Schanzer, a former treasury department terrorism financial analyst, warned the interception of weapons between Syria and North Korea is a“nightmare scenario”.
He said: “This is a nightmare scenario.
“What we are looking at right now is the North Korean regime – one of them of the most dangerous regimes in the world – peddling some of its most dangerous weapons to other more dangerous regimes on the planet, including that of Bashar al-Assad, who has been using chemical weapons against his own people for the last several years.”
When asked about what could have potentially been intercepted in the shipments, Mr Schnazer added: “It could have been missile parts, could have been chemical agents themselves.
“Regardless, it’s something that is likely going to aid Bashar al-Assad in his continued slaughter of the Syrian people.”
Another expert, Emily Landau, a senior research fellow and head of arms control programme at the Institute for National Security Studies, claimed Donald Trump’s sanctions could actually see the rise in attempts by North Korea to sell weapons to other evil regimes.
She said: “There’s this cooperation, and it surfaces every once in a while.
“There’s North Korea-Syrian cooperation, North Korean-Iranian cooperation in the non-conventional realm.
“It’s all part of the dangerous activity of North Korea as a proliferator in the sense it will sell and share technologies, know-how and components that are related to nuclear and chemical weapons with anyone that pays hard cash.”
She added: “If sanctions are put on North Korea then it’s in even more dire need of cash.
“Therefore it has even more of a motivation to make these kinds of deals with any state and entity which is willing to buy it.
“With North Korea, it’s all about the money.”